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50 Cent Targeted by Hackers Promoting Fake Cryptocurrency
Famous rapper 50 Cent revealed that hackers hacked into his X account and personal website to promote a fake cryptocurrency.
On June 21, 50 Cent, whose real name is Curtis James Jackson, took to Instagram to alert his 32.8 million followers that both his X account and his personal website, thisis50.com, had been compromised .
According to the award-winning artist, hackers used the platforms to promote a new memetic currency called GUNIT, named after the hip-hop group 50 Cent founded in the late 1990s.
Source: 50 Cent on Instagram
50 Cent has no connection to the fake cryptocurrency. The “Expendables 4” star explained that hackers exploited his vast social media reach to attract investors.
The scam – a pump and drain scheme – involved creating the GUNIT token and using the significant influence of 50 Cent – he has approximately 12.9 million followers on X – to inflate the price of the token. With the influx of investors, GUNIT’s value would skyrocket, only to plummet to $0.00016 after the scammers abandoned their holdings.
50 Cent shared several screenshots on Instagram, showing the meteoric rise and sharp decline in GUNIT’s market value. It is believed that hackers managed to steal up to $300,000,000 in just 30 minutes.
However, an analysis of GUNIT’s business activity on Dex Screener Shows that the total trading volume of the token in the last 16 hours is just under $20 million.
Specifically, five accounts downloaded more than 670 million GUNIT tokens worth more than $2.3 million. The meme coin currently has 2,799 holders and a market capitalization of $330,000.
This latest incident is not 50 Cent’s first encounter with cryptocurrencies. In 2018, reports surfaced that the rapper had made millions accepting Bitcoin (Bitcoin) as payment for his album “Animal Ambition” in 2014.
Second TMZ50 Cent amassed around 700 BTC, worth around $662 each, with earnings of around $463,000.
TMZ estimated the singer and actor’s BTC stash would be worth between $7 million and $8.5 million in 2018, when he published the story.
However, Jackson, who also produces numerous hit TV shows, denied such claims in court, stating that although he accepted the cryptocurrency as payment, it did not result in any significant gain for him.